cut the cord
by Ivory Muse
Summary: Every Friday, you've got a tradition. You drag Sheldon, your terrifyingly clever and terrifyingly bratty son, to George Jr.'s game. He spends it complaining under his breath (or over his breath). You spend it two inches away from slapping him upside the head.


notes: been working on this since the thanksgiving episode- i've been having a lot of sheldon inspiration lately. warnings for homophobic language and implied corporal punishment, but these are the less pleasant coopers, after all.

* * *

Every Friday, you've got a tradition. You drag Sheldon, your terrifyingly clever and terrifyingly bratty son, to George Jr.'s game. He spends it complaining under his breath (or over his breath). You spend it two inches away from slapping him upside the head, feeling as though since the hunting trips, the fighting lessons, and the poker all fell through, he could maybe stop making you feel like you've wasted your paternal efforts.

You love Sheldon- you _do_- but sometimes (always) that isn't enough. Love won't pay his college tuition or teach him field theory or erase the fact that he's an eleven year old robogeek with the mind of Einstein and the maturity of a toddler, and neither will football, but at least football you understand.

"This is puerile," Sheldon protests, a broken record. He's tiny in George's old sweatshirt, and the wind has long since made his hair a rat's nest. "Why, exactly, do you spend hours of your life surveying a hoarde of sweaty athletes ramming into each other?"

You take a surreptitious swig from the whiskey bottle you'd stashed beneath your coat, just for, um, emergency purposes. "Fun?"

Sheldon snorts. "Right. Fun. Can I do my calculus homework now?"

It's pretty obvious that the kid hates you. The way he looks at people alone, like he's Jesus fucking Christ himself back to judge, is enough to flay you, but you refuse to move an inch. Mary already coddles him far too much as it is.

No, you want to say, you're his father and he'll _mind_ if he doesn't want his ass whipped, goddammit. But you know exactly what kind of response that'll get. "Your mama told you to come," you say instead. The boy loves his mother. Ashamed as hell of the rest of you, but he loves his mother.

"Mama wanted me to support my siblings," he clarifies. "Missy attends art class. Why couldn't I go with _her_?"

"Because you're a man, not a fag," you snap, the last of your patience well and truly gone. Shit, he'd drive anyone to drink. "Now are you gonna watch the game?"

"Yes," he mutters, looking distinctly put out.

"Yes, what?" you insist, just to keep up the charade that your youngest has the tiniest shred of respect for you.

"Yes, _sir_." The honorific has a tinge of sarcasm attached, and he slumps further in his seat.

"The hell are you so eager to do your homework for, anyway?" You can't remember a single instance in your miserable academic career where you'd had the desire to sit down with a worksheet on a Friday night. Not one.

"Calculus," he answers primly, straightening up, "is the foundation of theoretical physics. If I master multivariable-"

God, you'd forgotten that when you give Sheldon a prompt he likes, he won't ever let go of it. Boy talks and talks and talks whether he has a willing audience or not, so you halfway pretend to listen while he jabbers on.

(You've got to take your time with Sheldon, you told a frazzled Mary a lifetime ago. You've got to take your time with Sheldon. So he won't toilet train or eat food that hasn't been thoroughly vetted for germs first or really _speak_ to anyone who isn't his bespectacled scholar of a pop-pop, it doesn't matter, you reassured. The kid had been kind of cute then, less like a walking encyclopedia on crack. Don't worry, he'll grow up, you told her, smooth out. Become more normal.

That was before she took him to some fancy specialist in Houston who said that Sheldon had the highest IQ he'd ever seen.)

You observe your son- your firstborn son, the only one you can claim to know. He's a good quarterback. Not the sharpest strap in the shed, but a damn good quarterback.

Final touchdown, delivered by none other than George Cooper, Jr, and the stands erupt with cheers. A little shakily, you clamber to your feet. "That's my boy," you shout, loudly informing the spectators of the fact that _your_ genes were responsible for Galveston's victory.

"You saw that, Dad?" George asks after the team celebratory huddle, cheeks glowing. "Hey, runt," he adds snidely towards his brother. Sheldon scowls.

"You're damn right I saw that. The way you intercepted the last pass-"

Sheldon irritably tugs your sleeve. "They won. _Now_ can I go home and do my calculus?"

The kid hates football, you realize- or, more like you realized that from the first match you ever made him watch and are only now admitting it to yourself. The kid hates football and he hates you, and he hates these attempts at making a man out of him. He can recite every great sports victory from the past five years but he no more appreciates it than he appreciates Arabic. Fuck, you're beginning to feel a profound sense of distaste towards him, this smug, superior creature you fathered. What right does he have to condemn you, a child who has to have the right breakfast cereal each morning lest he wage an unholy tantrum re: proper fiber content?

"Yeah, sure," you finally dismiss with a casual wave, turning your attention back on your eldest. He can walk, and if he leaves, maybe you can take George to the poolhouse for dinner without having to hear his smartass remarks for a change.

He looks like you did in high school, George- same wavy brown hair, same strong jaw, same lean, muscular figure. Plays great football, most popular guy in the junior class. A new girlfriend on his arm every week. Beer and shotguns and reckless driving. At least you can say this one lived up to your expectations.

(The only thing you dealt Sheldon was his electric blue eyes, eyes that see all of you for what you really are. It does not bother you, it does not bother you.)

"So, Mr. High-And-Mighty left," you say, clapping a hand on George's shoulder, as if Sheldon had been there of his own accord. "Come on, give me the details. How hard did you make those bitches from Beaumont cry?"


End file.
